Reid's response to Hume's perceptual relativity argument

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. 25-49
Author(s):  
Lorne Falkenstein
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
Visible Points ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Principal Objection ◽  
Best Argument ◽  
The Ideal

Reid declared Hume's appeal to variation in the magnitude of a table with distance to be the best argument that had ever been offered for the ‘ideal hypothesis’ that we experience nothing but our own mental states. Reid's principal objection to this argument fails to apply to minimally visible points. He did establish that we have reason to take our perceptions to be caused by external objects. But his case that we directly perceive external objects is undermined by what Hume had to say about the role played by color in our perception of the primary qualities of bodies.

Mental states, adverbial theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tye
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Grammatical Form ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Mental Objects

According to the adverbial theory, there are no mental objects of experience, no pains, itches, tickles, after-images, appearances. People certainly feel pains and have after-images; external objects certainly present appearances to people viewing them. But pains, after-images, and appearances are not real things. Statements which purport to be about such mental objects have a misleading grammatical form. In reality, such statements are about the ways in which people experience or sense or feel.

Berkeley's Ideas and the Primary/Secondary Distinction

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61
Author(s):  
Steven Nadler
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
External Objects ◽  
The Mind

Part of Berkeley's strategy in his attack on materialism in the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous is to argue that the epistemological distinction between ideas of so-called primary qualities and ideas of secondary qualities, especially as this distinction is found in Locke, is untenable. Both kinds of ideas-those presenting to the mind the quantifiable properties of bodies (shape, size, extension, motion) and those which are just sensations (color, odor, taste, heat)-are equally perceptions in the mind, and there is no reason to believe that one kind (the ideas of primary qualities) represents true properties of independently existing external objects while the other kind does not.

Introducing the architectus

Vitruvian Man ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 119-143
Author(s):  
John Oksanish
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Civic Knowledge ◽  
Principal Objection ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Ebb And Flow

Vitruvius prioritizes the ideal architectus over the ars architectonica and thus also restricts access to the body of architecture. The architectus embodies architecture, but he becomes complete only through a “well-rounded” course of training in various disciplines, which Vitruvius likens to a corpus. This encyclios disciplina has recalled the artes liberales for many readers, who imagine that Vitruvius invokes these disciplines to “elevate” architecture or indeed Vitruvius himself. Yet it is also clear that architecture was already viewed as intellectually meticulous. By creating an asymmetry between his training (multidisciplinary but moderate) and his influence (extending even to the products of all other arts), Vitruvius creates a gap reminiscent of a similar disparity that characterizes the ideal orator in Cicero’s De oratore. Vitruvius recreates the ebb and flow of De oratore in order to put architecture in competition with the oratory as the best sort of civic knowledge. Of special importance is that both Vitruvius and Cicero demur on whether their disciplines were true “arts,” recalling the principal objection leveled by Socrates against rhetoric in Gorgias. Cicero effectively sidesteps these issues by negating the possibility of a Roman ars oratoris and by insisting instead on oratory’s embodiment. Vitruvius’s architectus also becomes a distinctively Roman master of signs and representation, precisely because he embodies architecture. Vitruvius’s account ultimately differs from that of Cicero, however. Whereas the orator’s attention to decorum proved his suitability as an ambitious leader in the interest of the republican civitas, the training of the architectus ultimately ensures that he will faithfully (but not obsequiously) serve the princeps.

CHRYSIPPUS ON IMAGINATION IN AETIUS 4.12

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 332-346
Author(s):  
Pavle Stojanović
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Causal Interaction ◽  
External Objects ◽  
The World ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Stoic Philosophy

According to Diogenes Laertius (7.49–51), the concept of ‘appearance’ (φαντασία) played a central role in Stoic philosophy. As staunch corporealists, the Stoics believed that appearances are physical structures in our corporeal soul which provide the foundation for all our thoughts (Sext. Emp. Math. 7.228–41). One of the crucial features of appearance is that it is a representational mental state that has the ability to provide us with accurate awareness of the world through causal interaction between our senses and external objects, and thus supply the means for acquiring knowledge about the reality. However, the Stoics recognized that we can also be aware and think of objects that are real but are not presently affecting our senses, as well as objects that are altogether fictional and thus incapable of ever interacting with our senses. Because of this, it was important for them to distinguish between representational mental states which are and those which are not caused by external objects at the moment in which they are formed. Chrysippus was one of the Stoics who paid special attention to this distinction; in a key text, Aet. 4.12, he is reported as reserving the name ‘appearance’ (φαντασία) only for the former states, while for the latter he used a different term, ‘imagination’ (φανταστικόν).

The dual structure of touch

2021 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Mohan Matthen
Keyword(s):  
Haptic Perception ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tactile Sensation ◽  
Indirect Contact ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Tactile Sensations

Touch gives us tactile sensations that inform us of events that happen in and on our bodies (T), and haptic perception of things with which we are in direct or indirect contact (i.e. through intervening objects) (H). In the first part of this paper, I argue that these are distinct mental states (i.e. that T≠H). My strategy is to establish a double dissociation between T and H. Thus, it is possible to have similar sequences of tactile sensations T1 and T2, such that one yields a haptic perception and the other does not. And it is also possible to have the same haptic perception through different sequences of tactile sensations. This contradicts the idea that the switch from touch-awareness of one’s own body and touch-awareness of external objects is merely attentional: that being aware of something that you are touching is merely a matter of attending to your own body, but in a different way. In the second part of the chapter, I argue that tactile sensation does not represent space, but rather represents the relationships among parts of the body. This argument involves a reinterpretation of experimental results regarding touch-awareness by Patrick Haggard and co-workers.

Learning from What Color Experiences Are Good For

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 49-58
Author(s):  
Frank Jackson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Transmitted Light ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Good For ◽  
Best Argument

Color is an incredibly controversial topic. Here is a sample of views taken seriously: colors are dispositions to look coloured; colors are physical properties of surfaces or of light; colors are properties of certain mental states, which get projected onto the surfaces of objects or onto reflected or transmitted light; colors are an illusion; colors are sui generis. One hopes to break the impasse by finding a compelling starting point—one drawing on obvious points that are common ground—which naturally evolves into the theory of color one likes. I start with remarks about the utility of having mental states with a phenomenology, remarks which are, I urge, non-controversial. I develop them into the theory of color I favor. According to it, colors are properties of objects as objective as their shapes. The final section explains how the theory handles the best argument for subjectivism about color.

Localization of Intracellular Antigens in thin Sections with Ferritin Labeled Antibody

1970 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 174-175
Author(s):  
M.S. Shahrabadi ◽  
T. Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Bovine Serum Albumin ◽  
Bovine Serum ◽  
Antigenic Determinants ◽  
Conjugate Prior ◽  
Thin Sections ◽  
Specific Attachment ◽  
Intracellular Antigen ◽  
Antigen Antibody ◽  
Ideal Method ◽  
The Ideal

The technique of labeling of macromolecules with ferritin conjugated antibody has been successfully used for extracellular antigen by means of staining the specimen with conjugate prior to fixation and embedding. However, the ideal method to determine the location of intracellular antigen would be to do the antigen-antibody reaction in thin sections. This technique contains inherent problems such as the destruction of antigenic determinants during fixation or embedding and the non-specific attachment of conjugate to the embedding media. Certain embedding media such as polyampholytes (2) or cross-linked bovine serum albumin (3) have been introduced to overcome some of these problems.

Criteria and Methods for Reliable Three-Dimensional Image Reconstruction

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 330-331
Author(s):  
R. A. Crowther
Keyword(s):  
Image Reconstruction ◽  
Finite Number ◽  
Density Distribution ◽  
Electron Micrographs ◽  
Mathematical Problem ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ideal Case ◽  
Dimensional Image ◽  
General Object ◽  
The Ideal

The reconstruction of a three-dimensional image of a specimen from a set of electron micrographs reduces, under certain assumptions about the imaging process in the microscope, to the mathematical problem of reconstructing a density distribution from a set of its plane projections.In the absence of noise we can formulate a purely geometrical criterion, which, for a general object, fixes the resolution attainable from a given finite number of views in terms of the size of the object. For simplicity we take the ideal case of projections collected by a series of m equally spaced tilts about a single axis.

X-Ray Analysis of Frozen Hydrated Sections:The Unconventional Approach

1982 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 754-757
Author(s):  
R. Beeuwkes ◽  
A. Saubermann ◽  
P. Echlin ◽  
S. Churchill
Keyword(s):  
Ratio Method ◽  
Frozen Sections ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
Sample Handling ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Common Group ◽  
Ideal Method ◽  
Classic Paper ◽  
Physical Principles ◽  
The Ideal

Fifteen years ago, Hall described clearly the advantages of the thin section approach to biological x-ray microanalysis, and described clearly the ratio method for quantitive analysis in such preparations. In this now classic paper, he also made it clear that the ideal method of sample preparation would involve only freezing and sectioning at low temperature. Subsequently, Hall and his coworkers, as well as others, have applied themselves to the task of direct x-ray microanalysis of frozen sections. To achieve this goal, different methodological approachs have been developed as different groups sought solutions to a common group of technical problems. This report describes some of these problems and indicates the specific approaches and procedures developed by our group in order to overcome them. We acknowledge that the techniques evolved by our group are quite different from earlier approaches to cryomicrotomy and sample handling, hence the title of our paper. However, such departures from tradition have been based upon our attempt to apply basic physical principles to the processes involved. We feel we have demonstrated that such a break with tradition has valuable consequences.

High Resolution Study of Polytypism: Application to SiC and Au3 Mn

1982 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 540-541
Author(s):  
G. Van Tendeloo ◽  
J. Van Landuyt ◽  
S. Amelinckx
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Stacking Sequence ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Powerful Technique ◽  
Resolution Study ◽  
The Ideal

Polytypism has been studied for a number of years and a wide variety of stacking sequences has been detected and analysed. SiC is the prototype material in this respect; see e.g. Electron microscopy under high resolution conditions when combined with x-ray measurements is a very powerful technique to elucidate the correct stacking sequence or to study polytype transformations and deviations from the ideal stacking sequence.

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